Over at USA Today, Thomas K. Arnold is one of many Monday morning quarterbacks passing judgment on the $26 million opening weekend of The Golden Compass, earnings which fall short of New Line Cinema's expectations for the film. Among the possible culprits: professional offense-taker Bill Donahue, who has made the media rounds in his capacity as head of the Catholic League to protest a fantasy franchise he characterizes as "slipping in atheism in kind of a back-door fashion." Rolf Mittweg, New Line's marketing head, isn't convinced that such protests are responsible for the diminished returns, but concedes that they haven't had a chance to look at the data yet. He also points out that the film brought in another $55 million worldwide.

It's that international appeal that, I suspect, casts doubt upon Brooks Barnes's speculation in this morning's NY Times that the weak opening might throw the rest of the trilogy into question, just because I don't imagine it's that easy to pull the plug on a three-film franchise, especially when you're probably taking a long view that not only includes those foreign moviegoers but also the domestic home entertainment market. I confess, though, that I'm in no position to judge the further implication in Barnes's reporting that the top brass at New Line might want to start updating their resumes if the film doesn't start picking up some box office momentum.

Tangentially, there was a statement from Universal marketing president Adam Fogelson in Barnes's story that caught my eye:

"There are a lot of midlevel films that probably would have done better in years past... The sheer volume of films attempting to reach a mainstream audience, including some of the higher-profile independent films, may be making it too hard for most of them to break through."

Maybe that's relevant to our own experiences in publishing; you tell me.